Eleanor cross
The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve tall and lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with crosses erected in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had them built between 1291 and about 1295 in memory of his beloved wife Eleanor of Castile. The King and Queen had been married for 36 years and she stayed by the King's side through his many travels. While on a royal progress, she died in the East Midlands in November 1290. The crosses, erected in her memory, marked the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was transported to Westminster Abbey near London.
The crosses stood at Lincoln, Grantham and Stamford, all in Lincolnshire; Geddington and Hardingstone in Northamptonshire; Stony Stratford in Buckinghamshire; Woburn and Dunstable in Bedfordshire; St Albans and Waltham (now Waltham Cross) in Hertfordshire; Cheapside in London; and Charing (now Charing Cross) in Westminster.
Three of the medieval monuments – those at Geddington, Hardingstone and Waltham Cross – survive more or less intact; but the other nine, other than a few fragments, are lost. The largest and most ornate of the twelve was the Charing Cross. Several memorials and elaborated reproductions of the crosses have been erected, including the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross at Charing Cross Station (built 1865).
The in Oxford, commemorating the 16th-century Oxford Martyrs, was erected in 1841–1843 to the designs of George Gilbert Scott.
Martyrs' Memorial
Oxfordshire, was erected in 1859 to commemorate the marriage of Victoria, Princess Royal to Prince Frederick of Prussia: it was designed by John Gibbs.
Banbury Cross
The at Charing Cross in London was erected in 1865 outside Charing Cross railway station on the Strand, a few hundred yards to the east of the site of the medieval cross. It does not pretend to be a faithful copy of the original, being larger and more ornate. It stands 70 ft (21 m) high and was commissioned by the South Eastern Railway Company for their newly opened Charing Cross Hotel. The cross was designed by the hotel architect, E. M. Barry, who is also known for his work on Covent Garden. It was constructed by Thomas Earp of Lambeth from Portland stone, Mansfield stone (a fine sandstone) and Aberdeen granite.[124] It was restored to a substantial extent in 2009–10.[125]
Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross
The Ellesmere Memorial at , Lancashire, was erected in 1868 to the designs of T. G. Jackson to commemorate Harriet (d. 1866), wife of the 1st Earl of Ellesmere. It originally stood at a road junction, but was moved into the churchyard in 1968.
Walkden
The , in Kensington Gardens, London, commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her husband Prince Albert, and opened in 1872, was a far larger structure than any of the Eleanor crosses, but took inspiration from them. Its architect, Sir Gilbert Scott, claimed to have "adopt[ed] in my design the style at once most congenial with my own feelings, and that of the most touching monuments ever erected in this country to a Royal Consort – the exquisite 'Eleanor Crosses'".[126]
Albert Memorial
The Loudoun Monument, , Leicestershire, was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott and erected in 1879 to commemorate Edith Rawdon-Hastings, 10th Countess of Loudoun (d. 1874), wife of Charles Frederick Abney-Hastings.[127]
Ashby-de-la-Zouch
The was erected in Sledmere, East Riding of Yorkshire, in 1896–8, commissioned by Sir Tatton Sykes and designed by Temple Lushington Moore. Sir Tatton's son, Sir Mark Sykes, later added engraved brasses to turn it into a war memorial.
Sledmere Cross
The , Wirral, Merseyside, designed by Edmund Kirby, was unveiled in 1905.
Queen Victoria Monument, Birkenhead
A modern monument inspired by (but not directly modelled on) the lost medieval cross was erected in Stamford in 2009. It was designed by Wolfgang Buttress and sponsored by the Smith of Derby Group; and it stands in Sheepmarket, rather than at the original location. It takes the form of a tall stone and bronze spike: the carved detail is based on the single surviving fragment of the medieval cross.
[128]
Parsons, John Carmi (1995). Eleanor of Castile: queen and society in thirteenth-century England. Basingstoke: Macmillan. 0333619706.
ISBN
Alexander, Jonathan; Binski, Paul, eds. (1987). "The Eleanor crosses". Age of Chivalry: art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400. London: Royal Academy of Arts. pp. 361–66. 9780297791904. OL 46862874M.
ISBN
; Turner, T. Hudson, eds. (1841). "Liberationes factis per executores Dominae Alianorae consortis Edwardi Regis Angliae Primi". Manners and Household Expenses of England in the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. London: Roxburghe Club. pp. lvii–lxxxiv, 93–145. [An edition of the account rolls documenting payments for the construction of the crosses and monuments, 1291–94]
Botfield, Beriah
Cockerill, Sara (2014). Eleanor of Castile: the shadow queen. Stroud: Amberley. pp. 342–59. 9781445635897.
ISBN
(1963). "Royal tombs and monuments, 1066–1485". In Colvin, H. M. (ed.). The History of the King's Works. Vol. 1. London: HMSO. pp. 477–90 (479–85).
Colvin, H. M.
Crook, David (1990). "The last days of Eleanor of Castile: the death of a queen in Nottinghamshire, November 1290". Transactions of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire. 94: 17–28.
Galloway, James (1914). . London: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson. pp. 51–82.
Historical Sketches of Old Charing: The Hospital and Chapel of Saint Mary Roncevall: Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England, and the Monuments Erected in her Memory
(1979). A Cross for Queen Eleanor: the story of the building of the mediaeval Charing Cross, the subject of the decorations of the Northern Line platforms of the new Charing Cross Underground Station. London: London Transport. ISBN 0-85329-101-2.
Gentleman, David
Hastings, Maurice (1955). St Stephen's Chapel and its Place in the Development of Perpendicular Style in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 20–27.
Hillaby, Joe (1994). "The ritual-child-murder accusation: its dissemination and Harold of Gloucester". Jewish Historical Studies. 34: 69–109. 29779954.
JSTOR
Hillaby, Joe; Hillaby, Caroline (2013). The Palgrave Dictionary of Medieval Anglo-Jewish History. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 978-0-23027-816-5.
ISBN
(1842). "On the death of Eleanor of Castile, consort of King Edward the First, and the honours paid to her memory". Archaeologia. 29: 167–91. doi:10.1017/S0261340900001983.
Hunter, Joseph
Liversidge, M. J. H. (1989). "Alexander of Abingdon". In Liversidge, W. J. H.; Liversidge, M. J. H. (eds.). Abingdon Essays: Studies in Local History. Abingdon. pp. 89–111.
{{}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
cite book
Lovell, Walter (1892). (PDF). Archaeological Journal. 49: 17–43. doi:10.1080/00665983.1892.10852513.
"Queen Eleanor's Crosses"
Parsons, David, ed. (1991). Eleanor of Castile 1290–1990: essays to commemorate the 700th anniversary of her death. Stamford: Paul Watkins. 1871615984.
ISBN
Parsons, John Carmi (1995). Eleanor of Castile: queen and society in thirteenth-century England. Basingstoke: Macmillan. 0333619706.
ISBN
Stacey, Robert (2001). . In Maddicott, J. R.; Pallister, D. M. (eds.). The Medieval State: Essays Presented to James Campbell. London: The Hambledon Press. pp. 163–77.
"Anti-Semitism and the Medieval English State"
David Stocker (1986). "The Shrine of Little St Hugh". Medieval Art and Architecture at Lincoln Cathedral. British Archaeological Association. pp. 109–117. 978 0 907307 14 3.
ISBN
Warrington, Decca (2018). The Eleanor Crosses: the story of King Edward I's lost queen and her architectural legacy. Oxford: Signal Books. 978-1-909930-65-0.
ISBN
A link to a short article with images describing the likely circumstances surrounding the transfer of Queen Eleanor's body to Westminster
Sadraei, Agnieszka. . Art & Architecture. Courtauld Institute of Art. Archived from the original on 20 June 2017. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
"Eleanor's Crosses"
Adrian Fletcher's Paradoxplace – Eleanor Cross Page
. Lincs To The Past. Lincolnshire Archives. Retrieved 14 June 2019.
"Stamford Eleanor Cross"
Coles, Ken (February 1980). . The Stamford Historian. Stamford Survey Group. Archived from the original on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 3 April 2013.